Prevent quiet quitting by your customers
Written by: Julie Havemeier, Senior Strategist, Customer Engagement Group
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Are your customers quietly quitting?
Customer loyalty plays a vital role in a company’s success. On many measures, your loyal customers are your most valuable asset. As competition and customer expectations continue to increase, it’s important to recognize the signs that point to your customers disengaging. By looking at the question from the perspective of the customer and evaluating your strategies for retention and engagement across the lifecycle, you can prevent the all-too-common problem of “quiet quitting.”
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Why do customers quietly quit? It seems obvious, but the most common reason is dissatisfaction. This is often the result of emphasis on the transaction versus the relationship. Dissatisfaction can result at any point, but there are two key milestone triggers that deserve extra attention.
The start of the relationship
First impressions create long-lasting emotions that can greatly impact the customer experience. Frustration or pain points that prevent longer-term customer satisfaction can be caused by:
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Lack of clarity about how to maximize product or program benefits
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Impersonal or irrelevant communications
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Confusion over where to go for help
Anniversaries
Loyal customers who reach an anniversary milestone are often hit with a price hike or ineligibility on special promotions that are only offered to new customers. This might spur your proven customers to consider exclusive new customer offers from your competitors.
Customers want to feel valued. Are your customers getting what they want and need? Loyalty is an outcome of a good relationship. Without regular engagement and recognition, customers become indifferent and may leave. And if you aren’t investing in that relationship, know that your competitors certainly are.
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Is your company quietly quitting your customers?
If you're uncertain, here are three questions to consider:
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1. Have you defined and optimized your customer lifecycle programs and key touchpoints?
Lifecycle marketing programs focus on nurturing customer relationships throughout the entire journey. This should include a defined approach to new customers, recognition of milestones, next-best-action or product recommendations and win-back opportunities. By understanding and addressing specific needs and behaviors at different stages of the lifecycle, you can improve customer satisfaction.
2. Do you have a well-designed onboarding program?
An onboarding program sets the stage for the entire relationship. To be successful, it needs to ensure a smooth transition, provide education, address pain points and personalize interactions. The key is to create engagement at regular intervals because customers thrive on novelty and personalization. A loyalty program that doesn’t continually evolve can quickly become uninteresting.
3. Are you maximizing your data analysis?
Your customer data provides valuable insights into behavior, preferences and engagement patterns. It can give you a deeper understanding of your audience and help you strengthen customer relationships by increasing the relevancy of your content.
Often, customers are treated as one unit — neglecting the behaviors and needs of what should be divided into distinct groups. Segmentation allows you to deliver relevant messages and offers that resonate within each segment. It also enables you to design rewards that recognize and reinforce the value of the relationship using an equitable equation.
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Take stock of your current programs and act. Evaluate your methods for driving customer engagement and loyalty and invest in a robust and equitable strategy that works for both you and your customers.
A strong and balanced relationship is one that is harder to “quietly quit.”
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The best way to get started is to get in touch.
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